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How big of a problem even is this? Serious question: who buys digital movies? I don't really know anyone who even buys movies at all anymore, but if they do it

How big of a problem even is this? Serious question: who buys digital movies? I don't really know anyone who even buys movies at all anymore, but if they do it's likely they prefer a physical copy anyway. There's just so much content out there that the number of people that even care to rewatch a movie they've seen feels like it's really low.

TecoAndJix 4y ago
I bought "Bullet Train" over the weekend on Amazon for an at-home date night with my wife (rental was not available yet). It costs $20 which we justified as being the cost of 2 movie tickets. Doubt I will watch it again so really I was just paying for access
- drstewart 4y ago
  Good point. Early release access definitely seems like an almost separate use case bundled with the "Buy" feature, but like you mention most people aren't doing this to buy the movie but to watch it earlier.
mttjj 4y ago
I buy digital movies all the time. Not often at full price because there are sales and deals on iTunes weekly (daily). To me, "buying" a movie for $4.99 or even $8.99 (which is only a dollar or two more than the rental price) is worth it on the off-chance that I may want to watch it again in the future. My digital iTunes movie library is nearing 900 movies at this point. All backed up and downloaded locally so I reduce the risk of what this article is talking about happening to me.
- abruzzi 4y ago
  damn, you're way ahead of me, almost double my number. I haven't looked into local backups. I'll have to see how that is done (and buy a bigger harddrive.) I didn't really realize that Apple made this possible since I only use an AppleTV to purchase and view movies.
  - mttjj 4y ago
    Yeah, unfortunately you can't download the 4K versions. But for me that's an OK tradeoff since I've never once had to use the downloaded version to actually watch something on my AppleTV; everything has still been available in my account for streaming. Not to mention that over half of my library is movies from the 1930s to 1960s - way before 4K was even a concept. So except for a handful of recent movies, I've got the highest form downloaded anyway. I have a Mac mini that exists almost exclusively to be the backup for all my digital content should I ever need it. All the movies are downloaded to a 14TB external drive which is then cloned to another 16TB external drive and also fully backed up to Backblaze.
    - groovybits 4y ago
      Hi, can you explain (or link to) the process you use to download them? Is it manually one-by-one? Or is there a way to batch backup? Thanks
      - mttjj 4y ago
        Use the TV App on macOS. Just go into the list view and right-click on a movie (or multiple) and then you can download it. I let the TV app do all its own folder/library management. I've just configured the library to be on my external drive instead of my internal drive (you can do this from the TV app preferences). Note that this doesn't remove the DRM or anything like that. This is simply storing a local copy of the iTunes-protected video on your Mac. But if the movie isn't available to stream anymore or your internet is down, you can use Home Sharing on the AppleTV to connect to your Mac and stream the downloaded version.
        groovybits 4y ago
        Awesome, thank you! Have you attempted transferring those backups from one computer to another? (i.e. upgrading from one Mac to the next)
        4y ago
gcp123 4y ago
Parents with kids who like to repeatedly watch certain movies and shows.
- warner25 4y ago
  Yep, we've bought every season of Blue's Clues and Daniel Tiger on Amazon because they started out as included / free content on some service and then became "buy or rent" after our kids were hooked. I'm happy that they're not physical DVDs because those would have been destroyed long ago from getting handled too roughly too often. With four kids, we've gotten our money's worth.
bombcar 4y ago
If the cost to rent is X and the cost to buy is some multiple of X such that I suspect we'd rent enough to overcome the buy, I will buy, fully knowing I may lose access to it some day. Same reason that when I go to rent from RedBox and they offer the rental for $1 and let me keep the DVD for $2 or whatever I'll just buy. It's much more likely that my entire Amazon/Apple/Whatever account gets banned for something than they revoke access to more than a small subset of the movies, so for me the risk is worth the reward.
abruzzi 4y ago
I currently "own" 493 movies on iTunes. I don't use any streaming servies because my experience with them has been horrible--a couple dozen movies I want to watch with hundreds or thousands of filler movies that I have no interest in. When I started buying, I went into it with my eyes open. Apple seemed to be the safest option for companies that would be around for some time and unlikely to pull the plug on a service that wasn't doing as well as hoped. I've never had content pulled. I'm the sort of person that like to rewatch things. As a kid I rewatched Star Wars so many times that I knew the lines in the entire movie by heart, these days the Big Lebowski is comfort food that I'll throw on when I'm bored. So the "rent" option on iTunes never made sense to me. And my concern with something like Netflix is--will it be there when I want to rewatch it? If Apple ever gets out of the game I hope they give an out for people who have bought things, but I'm not optimistic. I'm less worried about them pulling content they lost a license to because I hope that licensing for purchase is a different world than licensing for free streaming. (Also, remember that this is exactly the same for app stores. I did have an app pulled that I paid for. So it does happen, I'm just hopeful that it doesn't very often.) EDIT: I just looked and I own two copies of David Lynch's "Lost Highway" (a mistake since I already owned it, and later saw it on sale and bought it without checking my list. It had changed hands and was being sold by a different distributor.) I searched for it on a non-logged-in computer and its not available to purchase at all. While this is a guarantee of nothing, it suggests that Apple's licensing with the movie rights owners may retain rights beyond the termination of the license.
- joshmanders 4y ago
  Last I checked I was nearing 1,000 movies on iTunes/AppleTV that I "bought" I also haven't noticed any missing or anything, but my understanding when I click the "buy" is I'm not buying to OWN the content like I'd expect with a DVD/VHS, but buying the right to watch it as long as the content is available as many times and whenever I want. I personally think people are clinging too much onto the description of "buying" that comes with physical goods, not digital goods.
scarface74 4y ago
Is this the new “who watches TV? I haven’t owned a TV in 20 years?” Obviously someone is buying them or do you think six or seven platforms are selling movies just for grins and giggles?
makeitdouble 4y ago
Many new movies don't have a "streaming" license for a while and your only option is "buying" them. It's also cheaper if you have a family and don't intend to watch it together at once, or even in a single day. It's also more flexible regarding which device can play the movie (iTunes rentals were bound to the device clicking the play button lady time I tried) It's way more niche than a few decades ago, but there's a bunch of cases where buying is a better choice.
- vel0city 4y ago
  > your only option is "buying" them. No, there's always another option: not watching the movie.
selfhoster11 4y ago
Content is not fungible. When I want to watch Terminator (1984) and nothing else, then no amount of having other killer-robot films on your platform will satisfy this want. As to why people who buy prefer to buy physical? Because there's actual ownership. I haven't even as much as investigated my options for buying 4K content, because I am 100% sure it doesn't exist in a form that's not hooked into some DRM system (AKA worse than useless). With physical content, at least you retain the control.
- cgrealy 4y ago
  > With physical content, at least you retain the control. To an extent, yes. Practically, you have control. Legally, you have still purchased a licence to view that content on that media in limited scenarios. You can't (legally) copy it, or display it in public (for free or money).
  - selfhoster11 4y ago
    If you buy physical content and subsequently rip it, you probably don’t care about legality all that much. Backing up discs or transcoding them is likely a violation of some law or other no matter where you are.
filoeleven 4y ago
The number of people could indeed be quite low, but I’m glad the use case is supported. I buy digital films occasionally, only the ones that I know I’ll want to re-watch every year or two. It’s a much nicer experience to call one up on a whim than it is to find out which (if any) streaming service currently has them, sign up, then cancel. That’s worth the $10 or $15 I paid, especially considering that the wine consumed during each viewing matches or exceeds the same cost, depending on how many folks I’m watching them with.
onychomys 4y ago
A couple of months ago I pirated "You Won't Be Alone". I finally got around to watching it last night and today I'm going to go buy a digital copy of it. Note that I already have a digital copy, it's what I watched last night! But the film isn't available on any sort of disc, and it was an amazing movie and I want to support the filmmakers any way I can. I honestly have no idea how much of my $20 is going to flow from Amazon to the production company to (hopefully) eventually the director. But what else can I possibly do?
evouga 4y ago
For me it's the convenience. If all movies were available reliably from a single streaming service, I would use it instead (as I did Netflix, in the early days). At my current stage of life, $10 here or there to buy a movie is irrelevant; the hassle of figuring out which streaming service (if any) has the movie I want to watch is not.
brokenmachine 4y ago
I like re-watching movies that I enjoy. I don't need to pay too much attention because I already know the story and often I notice new details while watching. At the very least, I know it'll be a good movie instead of taking a gamble with an unknown quantity.

TecoAndJix 4y ago

I bought "Bullet Train" over the weekend on Amazon for an at-home date night with my wife (rental was not available yet). It costs $20 which we justified as being the cost of 2 movie tickets. Doubt I will watch it again so really I was just paying for access

drstewart 4y ago
Good point. Early release access definitely seems like an almost separate use case bundled with the "Buy" feature, but like you mention most people aren't doing this to buy the movie but to watch it earlier.

mttjj 4y ago

I buy digital movies all the time. Not often at full price because there are sales and deals on iTunes weekly (daily). To me, "buying" a movie for $4.99 or even $8.99 (which is only a dollar or two more than the rental price) is worth it on the off-chance that I may want to watch it again in the future. My digital iTunes movie library is nearing 900 movies at this point. All backed up and downloaded locally so I reduce the risk of what this article is talking about happening to me.

abruzzi 4y ago
damn, you're way ahead of me, almost double my number. I haven't looked into local backups. I'll have to see how that is done (and buy a bigger harddrive.) I didn't really realize that Apple made this possible since I only use an AppleTV to purchase and view movies.
- mttjj 4y ago
  Yeah, unfortunately you can't download the 4K versions. But for me that's an OK tradeoff since I've never once had to use the downloaded version to actually watch something on my AppleTV; everything has still been available in my account for streaming. Not to mention that over half of my library is movies from the 1930s to 1960s - way before 4K was even a concept. So except for a handful of recent movies, I've got the highest form downloaded anyway. I have a Mac mini that exists almost exclusively to be the backup for all my digital content should I ever need it. All the movies are downloaded to a 14TB external drive which is then cloned to another 16TB external drive and also fully backed up to Backblaze.
  - groovybits 4y ago
    Hi, can you explain (or link to) the process you use to download them? Is it manually one-by-one? Or is there a way to batch backup? Thanks
    - mttjj 4y ago
      Use the TV App on macOS. Just go into the list view and right-click on a movie (or multiple) and then you can download it. I let the TV app do all its own folder/library management. I've just configured the library to be on my external drive instead of my internal drive (you can do this from the TV app preferences). Note that this doesn't remove the DRM or anything like that. This is simply storing a local copy of the iTunes-protected video on your Mac. But if the movie isn't available to stream anymore or your internet is down, you can use Home Sharing on the AppleTV to connect to your Mac and stream the downloaded version.
      - groovybits 4y ago
        Awesome, thank you! Have you attempted transferring those backups from one computer to another? (i.e. upgrading from one Mac to the next)
        4y ago

gcp123 4y ago

Parents with kids who like to repeatedly watch certain movies and shows.

warner25 4y ago
Yep, we've bought every season of Blue's Clues and Daniel Tiger on Amazon because they started out as included / free content on some service and then became "buy or rent" after our kids were hooked. I'm happy that they're not physical DVDs because those would have been destroyed long ago from getting handled too roughly too often. With four kids, we've gotten our money's worth.

bombcar 4y ago

If the cost to rent is X and the cost to buy is some multiple of X such that I suspect we'd rent enough to overcome the buy, I will buy, fully knowing I may lose access to it some day. Same reason that when I go to rent from RedBox and they offer the rental for $1 and let me keep the DVD for $2 or whatever I'll just buy. It's much more likely that my entire Amazon/Apple/Whatever account gets banned for something than they revoke access to more than a small subset of the movies, so for me the risk is worth the reward.

abruzzi 4y ago

I currently "own" 493 movies on iTunes. I don't use any streaming servies because my experience with them has been horrible--a couple dozen movies I want to watch with hundreds or thousands of filler movies that I have no interest in. When I started buying, I went into it with my eyes open. Apple seemed to be the safest option for companies that would be around for some time and unlikely to pull the plug on a service that wasn't doing as well as hoped. I've never had content pulled. I'm the sort of person that like to rewatch things. As a kid I rewatched Star Wars so many times that I knew the lines in the entire movie by heart, these days the Big Lebowski is comfort food that I'll throw on when I'm bored. So the "rent" option on iTunes never made sense to me. And my concern with something like Netflix is--will it be there when I want to rewatch it? If Apple ever gets out of the game I hope they give an out for people who have bought things, but I'm not optimistic. I'm less worried about them pulling content they lost a license to because I hope that licensing for purchase is a different world than licensing for free streaming. (Also, remember that this is exactly the same for app stores. I did have an app pulled that I paid for. So it does happen, I'm just hopeful that it doesn't very often.) EDIT: I just looked and I own two copies of David Lynch's "Lost Highway" (a mistake since I already owned it, and later saw it on sale and bought it without checking my list. It had changed hands and was being sold by a different distributor.) I searched for it on a non-logged-in computer and its not available to purchase at all. While this is a guarantee of nothing, it suggests that Apple's licensing with the movie rights owners may retain rights beyond the termination of the license.

joshmanders 4y ago
Last I checked I was nearing 1,000 movies on iTunes/AppleTV that I "bought" I also haven't noticed any missing or anything, but my understanding when I click the "buy" is I'm not buying to OWN the content like I'd expect with a DVD/VHS, but buying the right to watch it as long as the content is available as many times and whenever I want. I personally think people are clinging too much onto the description of "buying" that comes with physical goods, not digital goods.

scarface74 4y ago

Is this the new “who watches TV? I haven’t owned a TV in 20 years?” Obviously someone is buying them or do you think six or seven platforms are selling movies just for grins and giggles?

makeitdouble 4y ago

Many new movies don't have a "streaming" license for a while and your only option is "buying" them. It's also cheaper if you have a family and don't intend to watch it together at once, or even in a single day. It's also more flexible regarding which device can play the movie (iTunes rentals were bound to the device clicking the play button lady time I tried) It's way more niche than a few decades ago, but there's a bunch of cases where buying is a better choice.

vel0city 4y ago
> your only option is "buying" them. No, there's always another option: not watching the movie.

selfhoster11 4y ago

Content is not fungible. When I want to watch Terminator (1984) and nothing else, then no amount of having other killer-robot films on your platform will satisfy this want. As to why people who buy prefer to buy physical? Because there's actual ownership. I haven't even as much as investigated my options for buying 4K content, because I am 100% sure it doesn't exist in a form that's not hooked into some DRM system (AKA worse than useless). With physical content, at least you retain the control.

cgrealy 4y ago
> With physical content, at least you retain the control. To an extent, yes. Practically, you have control. Legally, you have still purchased a licence to view that content on that media in limited scenarios. You can't (legally) copy it, or display it in public (for free or money).
- selfhoster11 4y ago
  If you buy physical content and subsequently rip it, you probably don’t care about legality all that much. Backing up discs or transcoding them is likely a violation of some law or other no matter where you are.

filoeleven 4y ago

The number of people could indeed be quite low, but I’m glad the use case is supported. I buy digital films occasionally, only the ones that I know I’ll want to re-watch every year or two. It’s a much nicer experience to call one up on a whim than it is to find out which (if any) streaming service currently has them, sign up, then cancel. That’s worth the $10 or $15 I paid, especially considering that the wine consumed during each viewing matches or exceeds the same cost, depending on how many folks I’m watching them with.

onychomys 4y ago

A couple of months ago I pirated "You Won't Be Alone". I finally got around to watching it last night and today I'm going to go buy a digital copy of it. Note that I already have a digital copy, it's what I watched last night! But the film isn't available on any sort of disc, and it was an amazing movie and I want to support the filmmakers any way I can. I honestly have no idea how much of my $20 is going to flow from Amazon to the production company to (hopefully) eventually the director. But what else can I possibly do?

evouga 4y ago

For me it's the convenience. If all movies were available reliably from a single streaming service, I would use it instead (as I did Netflix, in the early days). At my current stage of life, $10 here or there to buy a movie is irrelevant; the hassle of figuring out which streaming service (if any) has the movie I want to watch is not.

brokenmachine 4y ago

I like re-watching movies that I enjoy. I don't need to pay too much attention because I already know the story and often I notice new details while watching. At the very least, I know it'll be a good movie instead of taking a gamble with an unknown quantity.